Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 13th, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

That does not require a motion.

All in favour of the motion as presented.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Notice of motions. This is the standard 48-hour notice, which I will read:

That 48 hours' notice be required for any substantive motion to be considered by the Committee, unless the substantive motion relates directly to business then under consideration; and that the notice of motion be filed with the Clerk of the Committee and distributed to members in both official languages before consideration be given.

I take it that Mr. Sweet has presented an amendment that he wants the committee to consider. I will read Mr. Sweet's amendment:

That the 48 hours' notice shall be required for any substantive motion to be considered by the Committee, and that the period of notice be calculated from the time the motion has been distributed to the members of the committee by the Clerk of the Committee, and that the motion shall be distributed to members in both official languages, and that all motions received by the Clerk shall be placed upon the agenda of the first Committee meeting following the period of notice.

Perhaps I'll get you to speak to that, Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Chairman, the idea of this amendment is to allow all members to be duly able to think about any motion that would be coming regarding any topic. It gives them 48 hours from the time it's distributed in both official languages, and then they can thoughtfully debate and vote on that specific motion. That was the purpose of it. Actually, it is akin in spirit to the one Mr. Hubbard tabled in order to investigate it more. This is designed so that we can make sure that all motions are thought through carefully.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I have a question, Mr. Sweet.

Is that not the practice that is followed now?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Right now--you'll see the difference in the other motion, Mr. Chairman--this would circumvent any motion being accepted that's germane to the subject at the time.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'll just quickly clarify the distinction.

Right now it's possible for a member to raise a substantive motion without 48 hours' notice if that motion pertains to the substance of what's being discussed before the committee. What we're suggesting is that all motions, regardless of whether or not they are germane to the substance of the committee's debate, require 48 hours' notice. That's the distinction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

That's what I thought was the distinction, and I have a problem with it. The whole purpose of it is to allow people not to be caught off guard, so that nobody can plan a sneak attack, and so that nobody gets ambushed, and so that we don't have this big issue that's going to create headlines and nobody knows anything about it. But if we're already dealing with a matter, to then break that down and slow it down even more, to say that even though we're already engaged in an issue, and we're in the middle of it and trying to make determinations on where we're going to go, we suddenly have to stop and give 48 hours' notice to put a motion, I have a problem with that. If collectively we think the motion that's being put forward is too substantive to move on too quickly, then we can just move to table, and we can buy ourselves that time. But it seems to me that we don't want to give somebody the ability to obstruct the efficiency of the committee in dealing with fundamental issues that are already properly on the agenda, on the floor in front of us, in which we're already engaged, and to bring all the discussion to a halt and buy themselves this 48 hours when we already have the ability to do that if procedurally we feel we need to slow down a bit.

I'm not comfortable, nor do I see the need to provide this new tool--I see it more as a tool than a protection--to members of the committee.

Things work fine the way they are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Holland.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would just point out that Mr. Sweet's motion is actually in violation of his own motion. We didn't receive this 48 hours in advance. We're receiving it today.

I don't know how serious Mr. Sweet is about this, but I would agree with Mr. Christopherson that it doesn't make a good deal of sense. If the committee were already seized with a matter, it could debate it. Mr. Hubbard proved earlier that if the committee is not ready to deal with a matter it can simply table it. This would unduly slow things down, and the committee already has within its power to set aside something it is not ready to deal with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Fitzpatrick.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

What Mr. Christopherson said made a fair amount of sense. The difficulty that I think all of us experienced in previous meetings was when there was something remotely germane to the topic at hand and a motion was pulled out of the blue calling for witnesses that nobody knew anything about, and so on, or was presented to us with no background on it, and we were all asked to give some sort of informed judgment or opinion on it. Sorry, that's not the way good decisions are made.

If we think back to those circumstances, we can agree in almost every single case that there would have been no problem with the 48 hours' notice to deal with these matters. The steering committee people could have looked at these things and dealt with them in some rational, logical way, and there would have been no injustice to anybody. It maybe helped individual people get a headline or a story out of it or something, but it sure didn't help anybody on this committee make sound, informed judgments, and sometimes it just led down a path to nowhere when we actually got into these motions. I think I can understand the gist of this motion--that it has to be darned relevant to the things that are at hand, and not some remote thing that nobody knows anything about except the person making the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I don't think thoughtful due diligence presents any obstruction to the efficiency of the committee.

To Mr. Christopherson's point, if there is unanimous consent at the table, then we can still move ahead with a motion at the time, and that provision would still be there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Monsieur Laforest.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Chairman, the motion on the table seeks to improve the way in which the committee operates, but in my opinion, it fails to do that. I have been a member of the public accounts committee for a year and I feel the current format serves the committee well and allows for some interaction when necessary. Therefore, I disagree with this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I would like to make a comment on Mr. Fitzpatrick's point.

We did have a lot of motions appearing in this committee to call additional witnesses. However, as chairman, I have always dealt with them as substantive motions. In all cases the mover got unanimous consent to bring them—not in all cases, but in some cases. That's a little background.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'll say this very briefly, because I don't think we need to draw this out.

The difference is that you are increasing the threshold. On the one hand, you're giving the committee the ability to say no, we don't want to deal with this right now, and a majority can decide to table. If we change the rule, it takes unanimous consent to allow a substantive matter to be at the committee, so the threshold is much higher, and the efficiency is going to go right down.

In my opinion, I don't think the government has made their case for the change.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Is there any other discussion?

We're going to vote on Mr. Sweet's amendment. Do I need to read it again?

I'll read it again.

That 48 hours' notice shall be required for any substantive motion to be considered by the Committee, and that the period of notice be calculated from the time the motion has been distributed to the members of the Committee by the Clerk of the Committee, and that the motion shall be distributed to all members in both official languages, and that all motions received by the Clerk shall be placed upon the agenda of the first Committee meeting following the period of notice.

You have heard the amendment.

(Motion negatived)

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We're back to the original motion, and I'm going to read that again:

That 48 hours' notice be required for any substantive motion to be considered by the Committee, unless the substantive motion relates directly to business then under consideration; and that the notice of motion be filed with the Clerk of the Committee and distributed to members in both official languages before consideration is given.

That motion has been moved.

(Motion agreed to)

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Was that carried?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

That was carried.

The last routine motion is time allocation. I will read it:

That the witnesses be given five (5) minutes to make their opening statements and if they have additional information, it should be deposited with the Clerk of the Committee and:

That during the questioning of witnesses the time allocated to each questioner be as follows: On the first round of questions, eight (8) minutes to a representative of each party in the following order: Liberal, Bloc Québécois, Conservative, NDP, Liberal and Conservative, on the second round of questioning, five (5) minutes per party in the following order: Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, Conservative, NDP, Liberal and Conservative.

Do I have a mover for that motion? Mr. Christopherson.

Any discussion? Mr. Hubbard.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

I think it's important for our committee to consider that all of us sit here for two hours at committee, and when you look at the time that each member has, the eight minutes and then the five minutes, there are going to be people sitting here for two hours who will never have an opportunity to ask a question. I really think there's something wrong with that when we're denying members who participate.

I know eight minutes has been traditional, and that takes up 40 minutes. Is it fair to all members of a committee to use so much?

I don't like making amendments on the spur of the moment, but I think, Mr. Chair, that as a committee we have to reflect on that and see that all members who sit here and faithfully perform their duties should have an opportunity to participate. Should it be only five minutes for the first round and maybe three or four minutes for the second in order to get more participation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Williams.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I think Mr. Hubbard mentioned that it's maybe not appropriate to deal with these things off the cuff. The eight minutes and the five minutes have served us fairly well.

If you want to get into a line of questioning, and in the public accounts committee we are into lines of questioning--we're not here to elicit policy statements from the witnesses that most other committees would expect; we sometimes have to ask some pointed questions of witnesses and follow up to ensure that we're satisfied with the answers. Therefore, short rounds like five minutes and three minutes are really not appropriate for this committee. Without serious study, I think we should leave it as is.

If Mr. Hubbard feels that way, perhaps the steering committee can look at it and come back with a recommendation, but I think we should pass it as it is right now.